The Underhill years

During the outbound Ares mission she professed her faith by conducting the Easter service.

In the first years at Underhill, she was part of the first exploratory expeditions across Mars's surface, with Ann Clayborne.

The space elevator project

Phyllis supported the idea of a space elevator for Mars during the 2040s before UNOMA. She was the leader of the project throughout the 11 years of its construction, after which she was named manager of the Space Elevator Authority on Clarke.

The Clarke incident

During the 2061 revolution, the elevator was destroyed and Clarke was shot away from Martian orbit. Phyllis was among those who were on Clarke and she was instrumental in organizing their survival. Within 30 hours they got all the Earth-to-Mars freighters out, linked them together, loaded all the supplies on them and left Clarke. They propelled themselves towards the Jovian system and after 10 weeks they used Jupiter's gravity to swing them around towards Earth (becoming the fastest traveling humans in history in the process); with limited supplies, they safely reached Earth and survived.

Return to Mars

She returned to Mars as the head of the UNTA and in the 2080s she supervised the construction of the second space elevator. She progressively lost interest in her science and gained interest in inter-transnational politics, always seeking a position with greater power; she never joined the Martian underground. She quit UNTA for the transnational Armscor, a position she deemed more powerful.

In 2101 she had an affair with Sax Russell, a person she had never shown interest before, during the time he was undercover as Stephen Lindholm in Burroughs. Her discovery of his true identity made her to turn him in to the authorities. However things got out of her control when she was taken to the Kasei Vallis high security compound along with Sax, effectively becoming imprisoned as well. This confusing situation resulted in her being killed in an explosion caused by Maya Toitovna during Sax's rescue, in 2102.